Related papers: Existence and uniqueness of minimizers for axisymm…
Nematic surfaces are thin fluid structures, ideally two-dimensional, endowed with an in-plane nematic order. In 2012, two variational models have been introduced by Giomi [11] and by Napoli and Vergori [29,28]. Both penalize the area of the…
We analyze an elastic surface energy which was recently introduced by G. Napoli and L.Vergori to model thin films of nematic liquid crystals. We show how a novel approach that takes into account also the extrinsic properties of the surfaces…
The paper concerns the analysis of global minimizers of a Dirichlet-type energy functional defined on the space of vector fields $H^1(S,T)$, where $S$ and $T$ are surfaces of revolution. The energy functional we consider is closely related…
We consider a variational model describing the shape of liquid drops and crystals under the influence of gravity, resting on a horizontal surface. Making use of anisotropic symmetrization techniques, we establish existence, convexity and…
We develop a theory of axisymmetric surfaces minimizing a combination of surface tension and nematic elastic energies which may be suitable for describing simple film and bubble shapes. As a function of the elastic constant and the applied…
The paper concerns the analysis of global minimizers of a Dirichlet-type energy functional in the class of $\mathbb{S}^2$-valued maps defined in cylindrical surfaces. The model naturally arises as a curved thin-film limit in the theories of…
In the context of finite elasticity, we propose plate models describing the spontaneous bending of nematic elastomer thin films due to variations along the thickness of the nematic order parameters. Reduced energy functionals are deduced…
We present a detailed analysis of one-dimensional N\'eel walls in thin uniaxial ferromagnetic films in the presence of an in-plane applied external field in the direction normal to the easy axis. Within the reduced one-dimensional thin film…
We consider a Canham-Helfrich-type variational problem defined over closed surfaces enclosing a fixed volume and having fixed surface area. The problem models the shape of multiphase biomembranes. It consists of minimizing the sum of the…
We use the method of $\Gamma$-convergence to study the behavior of the Landau-de Gennes model for a nematic liquid crystalline film in the limit of vanishing thickness. In this asymptotic regime, surface energy plays a greater role and we…
Nonconvex functionals with spherical symmetry are studied. Existence of one and radial symmetry of all global minimizers is shown with an approach based on convex relaxation.
We study a boundary value problem associated with a system of two second order differential equations with cubic nonlinearity which model a film of superconductor material subjected to a tangential magnetic field. We show that for an…
Wrinkles commonly develop in a thin film deposited on a soft elastomer substrate when the film is subject to compression. Motivated by recent experiments [Agrawal et al., Soft Matter 8, 7138 (2012)] that show how wrinkle morphology can be…
The axisymmetric flow of a thin liquid film is considered for the problem of a vertically rotating disk that is partially immersed in a liquid bath. A model for the fully three-dimensional free-boundary problem of the rotating disk, that…
Nematic interfaces are thin fluid films, ideally two-dimensional, endowed with an in-plane degenerate nematic order. In this letter we examine a generalisation of the classical Plateau problem to an axisymmetric nematic interface bounded by…
We use the method of $\Gamma$-convergence to study the behavior of the Landau-de Gennes model for a nematic liquid crystalline film attached to a general fixed surface in the limit of vanishing thickness. This paper generalizes the approach…
Free interfaces of liquid crystals tend to minimise both capillarity and anchoring forces. Here we study nematic films in planar and radial geometries with antagonistic anchoring boundary conditions and one deformable interface. Assuming a…
A variational model for describing the morphology of two-phase continua by allowing for the interplay between coherent and incoherent interfaces is introduced. Coherent interfaces are characterized by the microscopical arrangement of atoms…
We develop an analytic theory of existence and regularity of surfaces (given by graphs) arising from the geometric minimization problem $$\min_{\mathcal{M}}\frac{1}{2}\int_{\mathcal{M}}|\nabla_{\mathcal{M}}H|^2\,dA$$ where $\mathcal{M}$…
Various director configurations of a nematic liquid crystal, confined in a toroidal volume and subject to an external magnetic field, were evaluated numerically by performing finite element calculations in three dimensions. The equilibrium…